A KEY player in a major drug smuggling gang has been jailed for nine years for attempting to smuggle £2 million worth of cocaine into the UK destined for Derbyshire and London.

Richard Wright, aged 51, formerly of Elmstead Avenue, Chislehurst, Kent, was extradited from the Netherlands after he fled Britain in 2004.

He was sentenced for conspiring to import Class A drugs after 29kg of cocaine were found underneath solidified bitumen in a pod on the rear of a tarmac truck.

Mike O’Grady, HM Revenue and Customs assistant director of criminal investigation, said: “Wright fled the UK when circumstances got difficult and he saw we had arrested other gang members associated with the smuggling.

“It became clear he had continued his illegal activities in the Netherlands in the intervening period when he was arrested by our partners there for similar drug offences.”